The Apollo 17 lunar crew once reported seeing unidentified, strange bright sparks in space that looked like “Fourth of July” fireworks, according to UFO files finally released by the Pentagon on Friday.
A transcript from the 1972 mission to the moon included a description of the unidentified phenomena spotted outside their spacecraft.
“Now we’ve got a few very bright particles or fragments or something that go drifting by as we maneuver,” pilot Ronald Evans said, according to the transcript.
“There’s a whole bunch of big ones on my window down there — just bright. It looks like the Fourth of July out of Ron’s window,” pilot Harrison Schmitt added.
A photo taken during the mission, which was already made public but was included in Friday’s document dump, showed three dots appearing to hover in a triangular formation above the surface of the moon.
“While this photo has been previously released and discussed by keen observers, there is no consensus about the nature of the anomaly,” the Pentagon noted in the accompanying caption.
“New preliminary US government analysis suggests the image feature is potentially the result of a physical object in the scene.”
The details were among the 162 documents made public on Friday when the Department of War unveiled its new website dedicated solely to the UFO files.
One photo included in the initial document release captured five “unidentified phenomena” near the moon’s surface during the Apollo 12 mission in 1969, as well as a transcript from Gemini VII astronaut who reported seeing a “bogey” unidentified object that looked like the “path of a vehicle” trailing through space in 1965.
The Pentagon has been working on declassifying documents related to UFOs for years.
The Trump administration insisted that additional documents would be added to the site on a rolling basis going forward.
“The American people can now access the federal government’s declassified UAP files instantly. The latest UAP videos, photos, and original source documents from across the entire United States government are all in one place – no clearance required,” the Pentagon said in a post on X broadcasting the file dump.
“While past administrations sought to discredit or dissuade the American people, President Trump is focused on providing maximum transparency to the public, who can ultimately make up their own minds about the information contained in these files.”
